


En Garde

by fictionalportal



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra's in a corset, F/F, Pirate!Catra, Pirates, Swordfighting, Swords, Tumblr Prompt, god i'm such a hoe for pirates, lowkey redemption arc, mermaid!adora, you're welcome gays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 07:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19146154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalportal/pseuds/fictionalportal
Summary: While leading a scouting mission for the Horde's next raid, Catra gets stranded on a tiny, useless island--but she's not as alone as she first thinks.





	En Garde

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doublepasse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doublepasse/gifts).



So far, Catra had managed thirty-seven laps around the island’s beach without losing her mind. Someone was bound to see her smoke signal eventually. Sure, patrols around the Bright Moon archipelago had been mysteriously disappearing, but there was no way the rest of her allies would just vanish without a trace. Even if they did, the Horde would send someone for her. They might have been pirates, but they still had  _some_  honor. Right?

She had been leading a handful of scout ships to survey Bright Moon situation. As they were approaching the cluster of islands, their lookout Kyle picked the absolute worst time to take a nap in the crow’s nest--and a few minutes later, Catra found herself on the wet side of a capsized vessel. With her small ship destroyed by jagged rocks, her survival instincts took over, and somehow she ended up reaching the nearby land.  

And that was where her luck ran out. 

She’d never had much luck to begin with, really, but passing the same coconut for the thirty-seventh time twisted the knife. Overcome with a fury hotter than the unbearable midday sun, she wound up and punted the offending coconut into the ocean. As her foot connected with her target, she was painfully reminded that she’d shed her waterlogged boots along with her dark leather overcoat. Kicking a coconut barefoot was not an experience she would recommend to anyone but her worst enemies (which included the infamously cruel Shadow Weaver, first mate to Captain Hordak).

No less than four seconds after the coconut drowned, Catra’s stomach growled. 

She cursed her own impulsive rage. It wasn’t like this tiny little island was brimming with tropical fruits and snack options. There were two barren palm trees, a couple of fern-looking plants, and sand. Catra determined that the island almost definitely didn’t have a vending machine.

Two hours.

That wasn’t a long time.

Was it a long time?

Catra wasn’t sure anymore.

Would the mariners under her command even bother circling back? Had they done so already, found nothing but driftwood, and given up? Surely they knew Catra to be more tenacious than that. She might not  _like_  water, but it certainly wouldn’t be the death of her.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Great. Now she was hearing voices.

She had nothing better to do, so why not humor them?

“No, I’m not okay. Not even a little bit,” she said, throwing her hands in the air dramatically. She may as well use this as an opportunity to vent her frustrations. It wasn’t like anyone from the Horde would hear her. “My idiot lookout screwed up big time and we crashed. Our other ships keep disappearing and nobody knows why. This stupid scouting mission is my last chance to prove to Captain Hordak that promoting me wasn’t an ‘irreversible error.’ His first mate always says it like that, like every little thing I screw up goes on my permanent record forever. I could capture a thousand islands by myself and it wouldn’t matter to them just because I lost one stupid box during one stupid raid.  _And my socks are wet.”_

“Your captain sounds like a pretty nasty piece of work.”

Uh. Why was the voice replying like this was a real conversation? 

Catra shielded her eyes from the sun and scanned over every inch of the island (not that there were all that many inches in the first place). Unless one of the palm trees was talking to her...

“Over here.”

The sound came from behind her, a little bit playful, like the speaker was inviting Catra to join in on a private joke.

Catra turned around--nothing but ocean, sparkling and winking at her as sunlight brushed its fingers over each wave’s crest. A few islands in the distance, one within swimming distance, maybe. A pair of crystal blue eyes.

Wait, what?

Either fish were getting prettier or there was a real, actual  _person_  in the water. 

She had the most beautiful eyes Catra had ever seen, and her hair glowed like the sun itself. Her golden armor made her look like some kind of fairy tale heroine, but her entirely informal pose compromised that image. She lounged on her stomach, elbows propping her up in the sand, chin resting in her palm. For some reason that was totally lost to Catra, her lower body was stretched out behind her in the water. 

“Hey,” the girl said.

When she spoke, Catra realized that she should probably be startled by her presence. She recoiled, automatically assuming a defensive posture with her fists raised in front of her face.  _Not too much space between the feet,_  she remembered, and shortened her stance.

“Come here often?” The girl teased. 

Catra could only stare. This girl looked like she could be a princess or something. What the hell was she doing on a tiny little island in the middle of a war zone?

“That was, uh, a joke. Hm. You were all chatty a second ago,” the girl teased. “It was a pretty good monologue.”

With each little jab, Catra slowly remembered that she had a speaking voice of her own. Her tongue, however, did not seem to recall its vital role in delivering such words. “What--where--water?”

The girl narrowed her eyes, suddenly looking very concerned. “Do you have heat stroke or something?”

“I--no! I’m fine,” Catra retorted.

“Oh. In that case, I have to go--”

“No!” One stranger was better than zero friends. Colleagues, rather. Catra would be quite alright never speaking to any of them again, but they really seemed like her only way off this island. 

That earned Catra a raised eyebrow and a very amused look. “Okay. How’d you end up here, anyway? Are you stranded?”

“Pfft. No. I know exactly where I am.”

“Well, yeah. You’re on an island. I think that’s pretty obvious.” Why did this girl insist on staying on the ground like that? Didn’t she know that it was...off-putting? Distracting? Super, super weird?

Catra crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes in the most vicious glare she could muster.

“Bless you.”

“What?”

The girl laughed. “You looked like you had to sneeze.”

Catra’s scowling muscles must have been fatigued from squinting in the sun. And dehydration...

“Are you sure you’re not stranded? ‘Cause I kind of remember you saying you were.”

“Ugh,” Catra groaned, rolling her eyes. “Why do you care?”

“...I guess I don’t.” There was something in the girl’s tone akin to sadness. If Catra didn’t know better, she might wonder if this stranger was actually trying to help her.

Maybe it was worth the risk. It wasn’t like Catra had anything to lose. “Okay, maybe I’m a little bit stranded.”

“Ha! Knew it. Good thing I found you.”

“Can you, like, stand up?” Catra asked, sharpness fading from her voice like the whole situation was filing away at her willpower with an emery board.

The girl smiled brightly. “Give me a sec.” She rolled onto her back, still holding herself up by the elbows. Catra cocked her head. Was she planning to take a moment to even out her (already flawless) suntan?

Then the water around the girl’s legs start to glow. Her billowing blonde hair burned impossibly brighter, almost a white flame. The tide rolled out, following its own steady rhythm, and Catra saw the strangest thing she could have ever imagined.

Instead of legs, this girl had a  _fin_.

As Catra stared, the girl’s fin burst into a blinding light, matching her brilliant hair. A moment later the light faded, leaving her with much less intense straw-colored hair and a perfectly human-looking pair of legs clad in thin leather and golden shin plates.

When she stood up, her eyes--now the color of the ocean sky in a thunderstorm--focused on Catra’s.

The girl was a couple of inches taller than Catra, in fact. Normally, Catra might have entertained the urge to puff up her chest and stand on her tiptoes, but she felt rather like a thousand jellyfish had stung her into paralysis.

“You’re...” Catra started, her mouth going dry (dehydration, obviously). She tried again. “You’re--”

“Part whale?” The girl offered with a mischievous glint in her eye. She brought a hand up to just barely graze Catra’s cheek. “Close...”

This was probably a trick--it had to be. Catra desperately willed herself to snap out of it, and it almost worked. “Mermaid?” She could barely whisper it.

The girl booped her on the nose. “Got it.”

“Why are you dressed like that?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Looking down at herself, Catra realized that a brown leather corset, loose green pantaloons, and socks was not a very practical island hopping get up.

She also noticed that her rapier was no longer hanging by her hip.

With a curse under her breath, she hustled up the beach to where she’d left her coat and boots. She rifled through it all, but her weapon was nowhere to be found. What if she’d lost it during the wreck? No, she’d still had it when--

“Looking for this?” The girl called out from down by the water. 

Catra turned to see her own golden-hilted sword in the girl’s hand.

“Wow, this is really well-balanced.” 

Catra gritted her teeth, suddenly furious with this stranger. Who was she to show up here out of the blue--literally--and use cheap distractions to her advantage? “You gonna give that back? Or do you always steal from poor, shipwrecked stragglers?”

“That’s rich, coming from a pirate.” The girl swished the rapier through the air a few times, spun it in her hand, and stabbed it point-first into the sand.

How could she possibly know that? It wasn’t like Catra was walking around with a sign that read MARITIME CRIMINAL around her neck.

 _“If_  your friends come back for you, tell them to back off.”

Who did this  _mermaid_  think she was? She might have been charming, but intimidation was definitely not her strong suit. Catra cackled. 

Apparently, the girl didn’t like that one bit. Leaving Catra’s sword behind, she marched across the sand and stabbed a finger at Catra’s chest. “I’m serious.”

“Aww. I’m sure you are. It takes a real hero to defend a bunch of super-rich morons.”

The girl was relentless. She leaned closer, fierce rage flashing in her eyes. “If you want to stop losing ships, tell the Horde to stay away from Bright Moon.”

It was too easy to take the bait. “Or what?”

“Or else.”

Catra simply couldn’t handle it any longer. The whole situation was ridiculous--leading a last-ditch mission to prove her worth on Hordak’s crew, capsizing, a  _mermaid_  threatening the entire Horde--and it all came to a boil. She doubled over laughing.

Another bright flash cut Catra off abruptly. Before she could remember to exhale, a massive broadsword appeared in the girl’s hand. It was at least twice as long as Catra’s rapier and as wide as her outstretched palm.

“The Horde has been terrorizing these islands for too long. The people of Bright Moon might be wealthy, but they distribute their resources throughout the kingdom. At least they try to. Every time a Horde ship stops a convoy, it’s not the people of Bright Moon who lose. It’s the refugees in Plumeria, or the people starving in Salineas. Hordak thinks he can do whatever he wants, but the raiding, the pillaging, the plundering--it has to stop.” The girl raised her sword, pointing it up towards the soft spot just behind Catra’s chin. “And I’ll keep doing whatever it takes to keep you away.”

Slowly, Catra put the pieces together. This girl was the reason their ships kept disappearing. She must have been able to ambush them underwater, slice the hulls wide open without anyone ever noticing her. That explained why none of the survivors could explain what happened. Maybe she had help, maybe she didn’t. Given the size of her sword and the unshakable conviction in the set of her jaw, Catra doubted that this girl needed anyone’s assistance. Still, she seemed like the sort of person who would accept it--and that was something that Catra both deeply admired and profoundly disdained.

Catra’s own crew was incompetent, to say the least. They could hardly be trusted to tie their own laces. After less-than-stellar missions, though, there was always a small part of Catra that wondered if the outcome might have been different had she’d simply asked for an extra hand.

She must have been staring again.

This time it was the girl who faltered first. She let her sword dip just a little, and Catra saw her opening. She ducked and extended one leg, sweeping it under the girl’s feet. The girl lost her balance, her sword hand flailing into the air as an off-kilter counterweight. Catra snatched the weapon and stabbed the blade back towards its owner. She stopped it just before the point would connect with the vulnerable spot below the golden chest plate.

Even in such a tricky position, the girl’s confidence was unwavering. Catra couldn’t help but think of a mountain, immovable--or the ocean, ebbing and flowing, but irrefutably powerful.

Catra held the blade steady over the girl’s ribs, but it was clearly not a weapon meant to be wielded with a single hand, but she couldn’t very well add the other one now. That would ruin the whole effect.

“Are they really supply ships? Donations and stuff?” Catra asked.

The girl nodded. “Almost all of them.”

Catra raised an eyebrow. “Almost?”

“Can you tell the difference?”

Would it matter to the Horde anyway? It wasn’t as if Catra could march into Hordak’s quarters and alert him that they’d been stealing supplies meant for innocent people. They were pirates, after all, and the best pirates stole indiscriminately. Catra was starting to think that maybe she really wasn’t cut out for the job.

Perhaps there was too much salt water in her head. Perhaps the heat was finally getting to her. Maybe she was just tired of never being good enough. If she was so bad at being bad, why bother anymore? This strange girl was offering her an opportunity to be good, to be a hero. How many street-urchins-turned-pirates could say they’d ever stumbled across such a thing?

Carefully, Catra twirled the sword until the blade was pointing straight down. She let it fall from her grasp and plant itself in the sand, then extended a hand.

The girl looked between the hand and Catra’s face, clearly searching for some sign of deception.

Catra was, quite probably, making the most important decision of her life, and so of course she took extra care to look as disinterested as possible.

Finally, the girl accepted the hand and rose. She brushed herself off and smiled. “For a second there, I thought I was gonna have to fight you.”

“What can I say? Working for someone else is boring. Way too much work.”

The girl’s smile only grew. “You can be your own boss in Bright Moon.”

“If I win, you show me around the castle city.”

“If you win what?”

With a sly grin, Catra spun around the girl and deftly retrieved her rapier.

A spark ignited in the girl’s eyes. She enjoyed a good spar as much as the next vigilante, just as Catra suspected. The girl swung her own sword up onto her shoulder, managing its weight easily and cocking her hip. “I can’t duel someone without knowing their name.”

“Catra.”

“Adora.”

Catra leveled her blade at her opponent--ally, perhaps?

“En garde, Adora.”

Maybe, for the first time in her life, Catra had run into some good luck. 


End file.
